


A Quiet Sort of Rebellion

by Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 04:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11433627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays/pseuds/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays
Summary: The kid is trouble, but not in the way Soujiro expects.





	1. Chapter 1

The school calls the first damned day. Ten o’clock and the kid still hasn’t shown up. Soujiro spends the rest of the morning nursing a foul mood and meditating on a list of backbreaking chores, ready to give the kid hell when he gets back. Kurusu had seemed so quiet and soft-spoken on the weekend that he’d held out hope that this wouldn’t be so bad - he should have known it was too good to be true. Who knows what kind of hell he’ll get up to that Soujiro will have to deal with. The anger carries him all the way through the midday rush, making his conversation perfunctory and his coffee stronger than normal. In the end, though, he’s honest enough to admit that he’s as mad at himself as he is at the kid. He should have known better than to let himself get talked into playing probation officer. Gods know he isn’t any kind of role model.

That thought rocks him back on his mental heels, and by the time Kurusu gets back, the outrage has dulled itself down to a mundane irritation with dumb kids who don’t know what the hell they’re doing. So when the door clatters open and the kid drags himself in, he just leans himself up against the counter and waits.

“Hey. Got an interesting call from your school today.”

Kurusu doesn’t reply to that, just stands stiffly beside the door. It’s painfully clear he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Soujiro sighs through his teeth and sets down the towel.

“Come on, kid. First day and you’re already hours late? You’re not starting out well.”

“I got lost.”

Soujiro squints. Between the hair and the glasses, it’s hard to get a read on him. It might even be true. He waits a few seconds, but what he can see of Kurusu’s expression doesn’t budge. At last, he sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“Fine. You know how to get there now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He pauses, eyes the kid, feeling like he should say something more. (His father, his hindbrain remembers with sudden clarity, would have had something more to say. His father would have verbally thrashed the kid to within an inch of his life.) “Remember you’re on probation,” is what he settles for. “If you screw it up, no one’s going to rescue you.”

Something about the kid’s posture changes at that, though it’s hard to tell what, exactly. Some minute shift of weight or stiffening of the spine. “I understand,” he says, voice blandly polite, and steps past the threshold, heading for the stairwell at the rear of the shop.

_“We’re not done here,”_ hovers on the tip of Soujiro’s tongue, but it dies stillborn. What else is there to say? Instead, he picks up the dishtowel again. “I’m heading out in a few minutes. Remember to turn the lights out and lock up.”

“Yes, sir,” says Kurusu again, nothing more than a shadow at the foot of the stairs.

*************

He makes it home in time to catch Futaba flitting out of the kitchen, a box of reheated take-out in her hands.

“Hey, I’m home.”

She pauses at the foot of the stairs, just another shadow, and the sense of deja vu strikes Soujiro right between the eyes. She mumbles something that might be “Welcome back,” and flees. Soujiro watches her go, and feels the space behind his ribs hollow out a little. He wants a drink, with a sudden and overwhelming intensity. Instead, he shakes a battered pack of cheap cigarettes out of his coat pocket and steps out the back door.

The air is chilly, and under the familiar scent of traffic and city trash, there’s a faint smell of mud and spring. Soujiro leans up against the porch railing and digs the lighter that he carries always and almost never uses out of his pants pocket. The first drag tastes like tar, and he holds it in his lungs for a long moment before exhaling it into the night.

He remembers Futaba as a much younger child, talking a mile a minute around a mouthful of birthday cake, intent on relating, in order, each of the things she’d learned that day from her new books. It had been like confronting a tiny, dinosaur-focused Wakaba, and he’d known that someday she’d grow up to have the same intensity, the same keen insight. “She’s going to terrorize the boys when she’s old enough,” he’d told Wakaba. “Only the ones who aren’t worth her time,” she’d replied, her mouth crooking into a grin, and he’d taken the compliment for what it was.

Now, Futaba lives in the shadows of his house, barely speaks unless it’s over a phone, won’t look him in the eye. This is the first time he’s seen her in a least a week. He’d thought things would get better out from under her uncle’s thumb. But if anything, she’s gotten worse. He can’t avoid the thought that maybe it’s him. That he should have been warmer, more supportive. Or that he should have been stricter, should have insisted at the beginning that she come down from her room for meals. Or that he should at least have read a few books on raising kids before he took her in. Something. Anything.

And now he’s got the other kid to worry about, the delinquent.

A sudden, hot pain bites at his fingers, and he swears; the cigarette has burnt down almost to its end.

“What the hell am I doing?” he mutters.

He thinks of Futaba and Kurusu, ghosting their way through the shadows, and stubs the cigarette out.


	2. Chapter 2

The kid turns out to be a bit of an odd duck. Soujiro had been prepared for a delinquent, some punk with more guts and temper than sense. The kind of kid he’d been thirty-odd years ago. But Kurusu is quiet. Well-spoken. Self-sufficient. Soujiro had been worried that he’d have to talk him through the basics of keeping himself clean and fed, but he turns out to be a pro at looking after himself. He cleans up the attic the first day he’s there and keeps it that way, making gradual inroads on the accumulated mess. He locks up the shop like Soujiro tells him and picks up after himself when he uses the kitchen after hours. Nothing goes missing from the cafe - Soujiro checks. 

He doesn’t tell Futaba about his boarder. Mostly because Futaba doesn’t need another stranger to worry about and Soujiro has no intention of ever letting the kid anywhere near his private life. But also because, despite the fact that the kid doesn’t seem like the sort to have an assault record, there’s something a little bit off about him.

It’s hard to pin down. The kid’s light on his feet, and somehow he’s never quite where Soujiro expects him to be when he looks for him. After the fifth time it happens, it’s a little spooky, like Kurusu’s somehow out of sync with everything around him. Soujiro doesn’t think it’s intentional - the kid is just that quiet - but with that poker face, who can tell? He doesn’t ease up on him any - he makes sure the kid knows the kind of trouble he’s in and lays out the consequences if he steps out of line, and the kid always says “yes sir” and “no sir” in the appropriate places, wearing that serious expression, and Soujiro can’t tell worth a damn what he actually thinks about any of it. It’s a hell of a lot more self-possession than he had at sixteen, and he’s not sure he trusts it.

And the kid keeps coming back late. He doesn’t get any more calls from the school, so whatever he’s doing isn’t getting him in trouble over there. But when Soujiro asks him where he’s been, Kurusu looks him straight in the eye, wearing that same serious expression, and lies through his teeth.

“The trains were delayed.”

Soujiro’s had the metro app open on his phone for the last twenty minutes. Kurusu can probably see it from where he’s standing. The trains are running about as well as they ever do.

“Don’t give me that shit. Try again.”

But Kurusu just shrugs and doesn’t offer anything else. He looks neat and pressed, no sign that he’s been fighting, and he doesn’t smell as if he’s been smoking. When it becomes clear that he will happily stand there all night without explicating further, Soujiro lets out a sharp breath.

“Fine. It’s your life, kid. You know what’ll happen to you if you get caught making trouble. You understand the consequences here, right?”

“Yes sir,” Kususu says. Soujiro can’t tell whether it’s any more sincere than the lie about the trains.

All said and done, though, Kurusu is far less trouble than Soujiro was expecting, and he’s willing to let the kid make his own bad choices so long as they don’t come home to roost on his doorstep.

*******************************

On Friday, the kid brings home a cat. It’s a scrawny, filthy thing, not quite full-grown. It’s clearly been living on the streets, but it sticks to Kurusu’s side like a burr, and when the kid looks up at him, there’s a mulish set to his jaw. It might be the most genuine expression Soujiro has ever seen on him.

“He followed me home.” He pauses, watching Soujiro carefully. “I’ll pay for his food and litter.”

That’s a load of horseshit and they both know it. Soujiro knows exactly what the kid’s monthly stipend is, and it’s barely enough to cover his upkeep. He should say no. An animal in a restaurant is a bad idea. But the kid and the cat are both looking up at him with identical serious expressions, and what comes out instead is, “Keep it away from the kitchen and the customers.”

Kurusu blinks rapidly and rocks back a little, as if he’d been bracing himself for a blow that missed. Soujiro clears his throat. “See if you can get it cleaned up. I’ll try and find something for it to eat.”

After some deliberation, he rescues some scraps that he’d set aside for the next day’s chicken special. The customers won’t miss them, and the cat looks half-starved. When he goes back upstairs, he finds the kid wiping the cat down with a wet towel. There is a lot of aggrieved caterwauling, but the cat is taking it shockingly well, not making any move to escape. Soujiro sets the plate down, and it extricates itself from Kurusu’s attentions to crouch down in front of it, making tiny, contented noises as it delicately inhales piece after piece. It’s disgustingly charming. Kurusu watches it bemusedly, the corner of his mouth kicked up in an absent smile, and Soujiro wonders if a pet might work similar magic on Futaba. He files that thought carefully away for consideration later, and clears his throat.

“Got a name for it yet?”

“Morgana.”

The reply is immediate. The kid is obviously already attached, and Soujiro suddenly wonders if he’s been staying out late to look after the cat. He stifles a sigh. In any case, it’s got a name, now. No going back and kicking it out. Hell. Maybe having something to be responsible for will help keep the kid on the straight and narrow.

“All right. Plan on spending a few of your hours on Sunday helping out in the cafe. I’ll show you the ropes. Pick up a couple of shifts during the week, and we’ll call it square for the cat’s upkeep. We got a deal?”

The kid’s head snaps up, and he blinks again. “Yes, sir,” he says. And then, hesitantly, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. The cat’s your responsibility, got it? I see any sign that it’s being neglected or mistreated, or it winds up anywhere near the customers, and it goes straight to the pound.”

Kurusu nods solemnly, his expression sliding back to his serious default. “Yes, sir,” he says again. “I understand.”

“I hope you do,” Soujiro mutters, and turns to leave. As he heads back down the stairs, he hears Kurusu talking to the cat, his voice low and indistinct. There is a pause, and the cat meows as if it understands. Soujiro shakes his head, and sets about locking up the shop for the night.


End file.
